


Scars

by Rivulet027



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bathing/Washing, Bisexual Ray Palmer, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Leonard Snart, Leonard Snart Lives, M/M, Moving In Together, POV Ray Palmer, Pansexual Leonard Snart, Past Mick Rory/Leonard Snart, Past Relationship(s), Protective Leonard Snart, Season/Series 02, Widowed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 11:44:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16575809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivulet027/pseuds/Rivulet027
Summary: After losing Mick at the Oculus Ray comforts Len. He doesn't mean to fall for him, but he thinks that might be inevitable.





	Scars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cherryontop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherryontop/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with DC. It's not my toy box and I'm merely playing.

When Mick takes his place at the Oculus Ray suppresses all his guilt because Len breaks. Both Sara and Rip try to get him out of bed, but he refuses. Sara is dealing with her own grief regarding her sister. Ray isn’t sure if she’s told Len. Rip is starting to make noise about kicking all of them off the ship. Not sure if it’s his place to step in and relatively sure he won’t be welcome Ray brings Len chocolate chip cookies.

Len stares at him suspiciously, but then shifts to sit up and eat them. Ray watches quietly when Len hands him the plate and then lays back down. He takes in the way Len’s knees are bent almost to his chest and the way his head is resting in the crook of one of his arms. His other arm is wrapped tightly around his stomach. Ray places the plate on the dresser and then toes out of his shoes. He expects Len to push him out of bed, but he just shifts closer to the edge. Ray crawls up the bed behind him and then settles down. Len scoots back. Ray rearranges the blanket around both of them and wraps himself tightly around Len. He feels more than hears Len exhale. Len takes a slow deep breath in.

Ray starts to loosen his hold around Len’s stomach, memories of how the other man would shift away quickly and quietly whenever anyone tried to touch him flying through his head, but Len’s hand grabs his wrist and drags his arm back around. Len’s fingers thread through his with a tight grip.

“Sorry,” Ray tries. He not sure if he’s apologizing for not reading Len correctly or for everything Len’s lost.

“Don’t talk, you’ll ruin the mood.” Len almost sounds so much like himself that Ray wants to ask what he means by mood. Len complains, “I can hear you thinking.”

He sounds so exhausted that Ray bites his lip and swallows down his questions. At least he got Len to eat something. With that thought he closes his eyes. They nap.

He wakes up to Sara staring at him. He blinks at her. She waves the plate at him. He smiles. She gives him a small smile back, the first he’s seen on her in a while. She gives Len a look of concern, but steps out of the room. When he wakes up again Len is watching him warily.

“Hi,” he greets.

Len nods.

“Hungry?” he prods.

Len shrugs.

“I need to brush my teeth,” Ray tries to continue, as if waking up with a guy who’s best friend saved his life by giving his own is a normal, everyday occurrence. “You could use a shower.”

Len raises an eyebrow and for a moment Ray expects him to ask ‘could I Raymond’ and shove him out of bed. Instead he sighs and rolls back over. So Ray goes and brushes his teeth and tries to ignore how awake he is at a time when he normally sleeps. He finds Sara in the kitchen when he decides he’ll eat something and see if he can’t get more cookies in Len.

She’s eating a sandwich. It’s huge, like one of the monstrosities that Mick used to make when he couldn’t sleep. It’d always looked like more food than Ray normally wants, but it also looked like it’d have tasted so good. His mouth waters. He scrubs at his face. He’s not ready for the tears there, but they slide down his cheeks. He sighs and sits next to Sara.

“How’d you get him to eat?” Sara finally asks.

Ray wipes at his face, then sighs when the tears just come harder. He reminds, voice thick, “Sweet tooth.”

Sara laughs. “How many things did Mick go through for Snart until he found one that tasted good enough?”

Ray wants to say that was before the Time Pirates and before the Time Masters. Did any of them really know who Mick was anymore when he died? Except Mick has been picking candy up at their last mission.

Sara lets him cry while she eats. She pauses to pat him on the back once, but he tells her he just needs to get it out. He’s not going to break down in front of Len, not when the other man can’t even get out of bed. Finally she finishes her sandwich and asks, “Is it guilt that he took your place or jealousy that it wasn’t you that went out like a hero?

“Don’t you think that’s inappropriate?” Ray gapes.

“No,” she sighs. “You were going to sacrifice yourself because of what Rip said, because you felt it would make you a hero, but I think Mick did it for revenge, and so they wouldn’t hurt anyone else the way they hurt him. I wonder how much you being pushed to sacrifice yourself was the Time Masters still manipulating Rip and then Rip manipulating us.”

“You think I was just letting myself be manipulated?” The thought stings, even though he can see where Sara is coming from.

“We all were,” she points out.

He sighs and has Gideon make him some cookies. He sits down to eat them. They’re not quite sweet enough.

“When’s the next mission?” he asks when he’s finished one.

“Get Snart to take a shower, we’ll have Gideon get ahold of you if we need you.”

Ray almost protests, but Sara is throwing herself into helping keep the timeline intact so she doesn’t have to focus on her grief. The team needs Snart. They’re a small team and he’s not the only one that remembers how Snart would point out holes in Rip’s plans. It didn’t matter that Rip wasn’t acknowledging that because it was just the Oculus controlling them, right? With a sigh Ray says good night to Sara. When she leaves he finishes his cookies, then brushes his teeth again, before he gets Len some cookies.

“You didn’t shower,” he sighs when he realizes Len hasn’t even moved.

Len blinks at him, then holds his hand out for the plate.

Ray steps back, “After you’ve taken a shower.”

“They won’t taste as good,” Len reasons.

“There’s a mission, our friends could use help,” Ray bargains.

“I agreed to help destroy the Time Cops, not become one,” Len argues as he sits up and frowns at the plate of cookies.

“You don’t want to help us find the rest of the people who hurt Mick and stop them from hurting other people?” Ray pushes, even as he worries that his words are a low blow.

Len stills. He blinks once. He tilts his head, then points out. “You don’t know anything about me. I killed my own father. Shot him with my cold gun and I…”

“He put a bomb in your sister and would’ve probably hurt Mick too if he thought it’d help manipulate you,” Ray cuts off.

Len sits back and closes his eyes. His whole body is vibrating with tension.

Ray continues, wondering if he’ll get punched. “You’re protective of the people you love. Then the Time Master manipulated us and…”

“I abandoned him. I let all of you think I was going to kill him and I abandoned him.” The words are almost whispered, but each one is weighed down with guilt.

“Manipulated into abandoning him so that the Time Masters could get to him,” Ray reminds gently.

“If it had been any other time I’d have asked him why,” Len growls, voice growing as he jumps off the bed and stalks forward. “Sometimes it’d take a while to figure out, but he always had a reason when he abandoned a job. Someone said or did something and he wanted out and I wouldn’t even bother to ask why, just…he was mine and I forgot how important that was, they made me forget how important that was, he was.”

Ray sets the plate of cookies on the nightstand as quietly as he can, before he envelops Len in a hug. Len folds in against him, shaking. It takes him a moment to realize that Len’s crying. Big wracking silent tears. Ray tightens his grip.

They stand there for a long time together after Len stills. Len pulls away abruptly and stalks down the hall, Ray follows trying to get a grip on his sudden fear. Where is Len going? Why is he moving so quickly when he’s barely moved since they lost Mick?

Len heads into their shared bathroom and reaches for his shirt. He stops and stares at Ray. He takes his socks off and throws them on the floor glaring. “If I see one pitying look or sympathy on your face I will freeze you.”

Ray knows he should say he can step out, give Len privacy, but the door shuts behind him and all he can do is stare memorized as Len strips out of his clothes. He takes in Len’s scars and all he can think is he’s going to fall in love. He’ll get his heart broken. He’s not even sure Len is interested in romance, would even be interested in romance if he wasn’t grieving, but Ray’s already halfway there.

“Clothes Raymond,” Len prods.

Ray looks down at himself. “You want me to…”

“They’ll get wet,” Len points out.

Ray stripes, telling himself he shouldn’t, that he’s only going to get his heart broken, but he steps naked into the shower with Len. He kisses back even when Len tells him not to expect anything other than casual sex, something to stop them both from hurting every moment of every day.

Ray stops thinking it’s casual on Len’s end when Len starts sleeping in his room. Len’s clothes slowly migrate into his closet, their closet. Then Len starts leaving his cold gun there and Ray resists the urge to ask if Len is all moved in, because he’s relatively sure that Len is in denial about them sharing a room. Of course he tells Len he loves him instead. They’re just in bed, already curling into each other, and the words just come right out of his mouth. Ray wishes he could take them back, Len will hate him now. He’s relatively sure he’s not just a warm body that offers a reprieve from the numbness for Len, but he knows Len doesn’t love him either.

Len turns so that they’re facing each other. Ray feels himself relax, at least Len isn’t getting up and going back to his old room. Len kisses him. It’s warm and reassuring, but brief.

“Are you sure?” The question is Len giving him an out.

Ray kisses him against, deep and full of passion, but Len pushes him away instead of pulling him close.

“Is it easier to make yourself believe you’re in love with emotionally unavailable people?” Len pushes.

“That’s a horrible question,” Ray points out, not liking the implications and worried that they ring a bit true.

“What’s easier for you about loving someone who’s in love with another man?” Len asks, changing tactics. Then Len closes his eyes and takes a slow breath. “At least he’s actually dead this time.”

Maybe it’s unhealthy. Maybe his words are true. What kind of man builds a super suit after losing his fiancé and then pursues being a hero?

“I still miss her,” Ray admits. “It’s not all day every day, but I still miss her. You still miss Mick, that’s okay. We can miss them together.”

“You mean Anna,” Len clarifies. “Not Felicity or Kendra, but Anna.”

“Yeah, you understand that. You’re not going to judge me for it. Maybe it’s less I’m pursing someone that I know will leave me and maybe more I want someone who understands what I lost.” Ray closes his eyes tightly. Putting those words between them hurts and he’s not ready to be rejected.

Len’s thumb brushes across Ray’s lips. His lips briefly follow his thumb. “I’m not giving you back.”

“What?” Ray’s eyes fly open.

“Mine,” Len tells him. “I’m taking what you’re offering and I’m not giving you back.”

“I don’t understand what you’re staying,” Ray admits.

“Thirty years. My last relationship lasted thirty year. We fought. We weren’t always together, hell we weren’t always monogamous, but I don’t do short term.”

Ray stares. Len wants him too?

Len sighs. “I’m not in as deep as you are yet, but this isn’t casual for me either.”

“This is going to mean a lot more talking isn’t it?” Ray groans.

“Communication Ray,” Len questions. “How do you expect to have relationship without it?”

“Later?” Ray pushes.

Len makes a considering noise and then pushes him onto his back.


End file.
